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Massey Energy’s coal-mine explosion and BP’s drilling-platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico—resulting in the biggest oil spill in history—underscore why we should quit our fossil-fuel addiction and urge lawmakers to pass an effective climate and energy bill. These are the same types of corporations bidding on the drilling leases off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts that were recently approved by the Obama administration. Their frenetic push to intensify efficiency while compromising worker and environmental safety is to blame for the needless deaths and devastation. But so are all of us who demand an inordinate share of fossil fuels.

The Desert Southwest is still populated by scores of frontier cowboys and cowgirls. But now they ride the range high in the saddle of Escalades and Yukons. As the Navajo proverb goes, “You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.”

Our dilemma is that today a ton of CO₂ is worse than a ton emitted decades ago. Nature’s processes for cleaning up CO₂ have simply not been able to keep pace with our emissions. The oceans are warmer, more acidic and diluted by melting glaciers, making it difficult for them to absorb carbon dioxide. So more CO₂ is hanging out in the atmosphere, trapping heat and contributing to climate change.

The increase in environmental disasters—both manmade and naturally occurring—resembles a conversation between our leaders and Mother Nature. President Obama discusses “clean coal” as if it actually exists, and a coal mine explodes. He announces the expansion of offshore drilling, and an oil platform in the Gulf blows up. Could it be that nature is trying to tell us something?

With the cavalier talk of large-scale geoengineering to manipulate the Earth’s climate, the upswing in natural disasters is coming at a good time. How could clever—but far from omnipotent—humans possibly predict and manipulate such wildly complex and adaptive systems? Engineer and scientist Amory Lovins heeds against this strategy by observing, “The biggest cause of problems is solutions.”

Fortunately, the only human suffering caused by the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland was an inconvenience for travelers and financial losses for airlines. But it was also a gift from nature. Volcanic ash is good for the oceans. It’s rich in iron, which feeds the phytoplankton; that in turn absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere and give a boost to the marine food chain.

The Earth’s timely way of piping up gives me hope. Wildfires, floods, earthquakes, tornados and hurricanes reshape our landscapes, result in loss of life and are scary. But they also get us away from our televisions and motivate us to help one other and reclaim our humanity, often in the face of incompetent or inequitable governance. They also remind us that we’re part of nature’s grand scheme, which brings me to another bit of native wisdom:

"We humans must come again to a moral comprehension of the Earth and air. We must live according to the principle of a land ethic. The alternative is that we shall not live at all." - N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa

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